27. Rage Against the Machine, 'Rage Against the Machine'

"Anger is a gift," vocalist Zack de la Rocha proclaims in a venomous whisper in "Freedom," and Rage Against the Machine spread the wealth around, with an electrifying vengeance, all over the rest of their debut album. Gunning de la Rocha's incantatory rapping with rib-rattling slam, Rage Against the Machine get hot and nasty about authority with acute lyric detail and stunning force. Rage Against the Machine's mix of radical politics and headbanging kicks was a startling anomaly amid the self-absorbed ennui of the Year Grunge Broke. But the album's commercial success was a crucial reaffirmation of rock's potency as a weapon of protest. With Rage Against the Machine, subversion — in the great, defiant tradition of the Clash and the MC5 — was alive, and thrilling, in the mainstream.